RELIGION or POLITICS - Why Buddhism????? (Cont'd)

Hi Ho y'all, Now aren't you glad the weekend is over and you are happily back to work? No? AWWWW!  For those who aren't working, cheer up, it surely might get worse, so all I can say is "WAKE UP" to what where this country is being led to.

ON the other hand, "WHEN THE 'POWER OF LOVE' OVERCOMES THE 'LOVE OF POWER'  THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE." ........Meanwhile....

I closed my last blog with Shakyamuni's have described what it means to be enlightened. (Check archives) . He said,    "This is my constant thought: how I can cause all living beings to gain entry to the highest way and quickly attain Buddhahood".

I don't want to get into the story of Shakyamuni, who basically founded what is now Nichiren Buddhism, even though he lived nearly 3000 years ago, but for your understanding, he was born a prince of the Shakya caste and originally called Siddhartha Gautama. He grew up in regal luxury, but nevertheless it was prophesied before his birth that he would never inherit the throne, but, rather, was destined to become a man of great wisdom. He did and he was.

To jump ahead a bit; In Buddhism, this spirit of universal and impartial compassion is called 'jihi', comparable in some ways to the function of love in Christianity. Literally, 'ji' means to remove suffering and 'hi' means to give fundamental happiness. Implicit in  the concept of 'jihi', then, is an emphasis upon action.

Shakyamuni wanted to discover the solution to problem of birth, old age, and death, and so took the necessary action to reach the understanding of life he sought. Once he had attained enlightment he spent the rest of his life among the people, actively passing on what he had learnt and ensuring that his teachings would be transmitted to posterity. In this light, the idea that Buddhism is something that is the special preserve of wise men meditating on mountain tops begins to look a little mis-placed.

Bearing these points in mind, and before we go on to discuss in more detail the Buddhist niew of life, it is important to mention a central feature of Buddhism which sets it apart from a religion such as Christian-ity (which most people in the West have at least a passing familiarity), namely, its atheism.

At heart, the difference between the two religions lies in their respective explanations of the nature of the primary force of teh universe and how we, as human beings, relate to it.  Christ-ianity teaches the existence of an all-powerful and all-seeing God. In contrast, Buddhism assserts the existence of a universal Law of life, expressed as - Nam Myoh Renge Kyo -. Of course, it msut be admitted that the Christian idea of god has evolve considerably from the Yawweh of the ancient tribes of israel, and that to some Christians today, God, is not a being in any sense but, rather, an abstract force with certain similarities to the Buddhist concept of the Universal Law. Even so, the implications of this basic difference between the two religions are far-reaching.

Fundamentally, Christianity teaches that there is an unbridgeable gulf between humanity and God for, even if one is taken into his grace, a humna bein can never actually become God or his equal. In contrast, Buddhism teaches that all people have the inherent potential to attain the supreme life-condition of Buddhahood in this lifetime and, indeedm that the prime purpose of a Buddha is to awaken ordinary people to, and then teach how to bring forth, their Buddha nature.

IN the Lotus Sutra , for example, Shakyamuni states, 'At the start I pledged to make all people perfectly equal to me, without any distinction between us', and throughout his writings, Nichiren Daishonin is at pains to convince his followers that Buddhism is not the exclusive possession of the Shakyamuni who died over 2000 years before, but that they all have it too.

He says, we common mortals can see neither our own eyebrows, which are so close, not heaven in the distance. Likewise, we do not see that the Buddha exists in our own hearts.

Buddhism explicitly denies the existence of a force external life. As Nichiren Daishonin states in ON MAINTAINING BUDDHAHOOD, one of his most famous writings:

You must never seek any of Shakyamuni's teachings of the Buddhas or bodhisattvas of the universe outside yourself. Your mastery of the Buddhist teachings will not relieve you of mortal sufferings in the least unless you perceive the nature of your own life. If you seek enlightment ouside yourself, any discipline or good deed will be meaningless. For example, a poor man cannot earn a penny just by counting his neighbor's wealth, even if he does so day and night.


I leave you here with the best of all emotions, love.  Back shortly.  Cheers     CJ